Kiran Paranjape. Émilie Bédard, Deeksha Shetty, MengQi Hu, Fiona Chan, Pak Choon, Michèle Prévost, Sébastien P. Faucher
Highlights
- Cooling towers have been linked to many outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease, a severe pneumonia caused by Legionella
- Researchers identified complex ecological networks highlighting the importance of other bacteria and primary producers e.g. the presence of Brevundimonas bacteria was associated with higher levels of Legionella.
- Brevundimonas is prey for a Legionella host species, Tetrahymena but Brevundimonas also directly stimulated the growth of Legionella in laboratory experiments.
- The study suggests that the Legionella host community is not the only factor that leads to Legionella Entire groups of microorganisms and their interactions play complex roles.
- Future work is needed to better understand these networks and how they vary over time. Those insights could be used to manipulate cooling tower microbiomes to reduce the presence of Legionella.